


Cleansing

by Julversia



Category: Halt and Catch Fire
Genre: Angst, Gen, Joe's pretty but he's got issues, Reinvention, Season Finale, i'm sensing a pattern here, shed that corporate skin, spoilery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 05:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2096817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julversia/pseuds/Julversia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe knows what to do when it's all done. And Joe has a flair for the dramatic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cleansing

**Author's Note:**

> This is only a theory I have about what happened with the truck.
> 
> I own nothing, no money is being made.
> 
>  

Flames. Once again the great sanitizer. He’d done this before. He exulted in it now as then. Fire cleansed everything: sin and noble intent alike. Both existed in him, always had. He was finished with this, though, his latest grand endeavor. It had worked-he’d been something, if only for a little while. 

But now it must be burned away so he could start fresh again. He closed his eyes and basked in the healing heat rolling out of the truck. He had to burn it. Like the plains tribes when they’d burned the prairies to make room for new growth. Swift hungry infernos over the middle of America, consuming everything and clearing away the crap. He liked that metaphor. Maybe he’d keep it. 

A soft flump sound brought his attention back to the truck. The boxes were collapsing under the hot orange tongues consuming them. A frown settled between his heavy brows. That wasn’t right. There should be more. More sparks, more heat, more smoke of a different color than this cloud of gray with black-tinged edges. 

He took a deep breath. The frown deepened, dragging the corners of his mouth down. Things were missing. The acrid stench of melting plastic. The popping of small metal parts as they bounced and blackened. The inevitable shatter of glass screens after they warped as much as they could handle. None of that was here. When he sniffed the air he got the tang of burning wood pulp. A little bit of a greasy smell, like rubber, as the flames licked the oils from the truck itself, but that was all. 

A smile crept across Joe’s mouth. Gordon. That brilliant, mistrustful bastard. He set him up. He knew something would happen. Maybe he’d smelled it on him, something from his pores that couldn’t be showered away or covered by expensive cologne. Maybe he saw it in his eyes, a shadow of his demons. Maybe it was just instinct warning a small frightened animal of impending danger. Either way, Gordon stopped it, stopped _him_.

A chuckle began deep in Joe’s chest. It was perfect. Months ago Gordon would never have conceived of doing this, of crossing Joe MacMillan’s path, of standing up for himself and what he’d created. Now look at him. Pulling the wool over the shyster’s eyes and making it work. The chuckle grew to a low laugh that sounded good over the crackle of flames and the hiss of burning boxes.

Joe tilted his head back and let the laughter come, loud and hearty. Howled at the sky. Tears streamed down his face and they were good tears. Fire wasn’t the only thing that cleansed.

Three days later the Porsche was gone, traded for a battered Bronco, appropriate for where he was going. Suits had been dropped in a charity bin, along with shoes, watches, ties-everything that made Joe MacMillan, IBM and Cardiff wunderkind. Now he was t-shirts, trekking pants, an old Army jacket and clunky boots again; a backpack and a bedroll made his home.

A deep breath of cool fresh air cleansed his lungs as he trudged through the field toward the Fiske Observatory.


End file.
